Military Intervention Not Solution For Mozambique Crisis - Expert
The executive director of the Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW), Claude Kabemba has said the proposed military intervention was not a viable solution to the crisis in the Cabo Delgado region, Mozambique.
Kabemba speaks when SADC leadership is considering military intervention after Islamic militants attacked Palma, a city in northern Mozambique close to multi-million oil projects.
He said a solution to the disturbances in Mozambique needs to address the socio-economic crisis in the country which has seen locals not benefiting from natural resources extracted from their communities.
Speaking during a Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC) virtual press conference on the turmoil in Mozambique, Kabemba went on to urge SADC leaders to consider dialogue first before opting for confrontation. He said:
_We are facing a very serious security threat in Mozambique which needs urgent solutions and any solution to that needs everyone to be brought together._
_It cannot be a solution that excludes the people of Mozambique. SADC must privilege dialogue to find sustainable solutions to the underlying causes of the insurgency and violence we are experiencing in Cabo Delgado._
_There must be a proper analysis of those problems and definition of the problem. What we are seeing in Mozambique is a resource conflict that is reminiscent of what we have seen in other parts of the continent, in Liberia, Sierra Leon, CAR (Central African Republic), in the DRC, and Nigeria._
_For any decision or intervention SADC needs to know the underlying causes and provide the correct definition of the problem. The continual exclusion of communities adjacent to those big investments to benefit from them is one of the biggest problems we are facing across the continent. The extraction of resources in Africa has never benefitted Africans._
Over 700 000 people have been forced out of the Cabo Delgado region by these groups while thousands including expatriates working in the region have been killed.
Kabemba argued that the Mozambican government was at fault and must understand that a socio-economic solution can solve the crisis adding “any other solution will be temporary.”
He proposed a resolution to the triple challenge of poverty, inequality, and unemployment as the sustainable solution to the Mozambican armed conflict.
More: Pindula News; NewZimbabwe
